


where there is faith

by StrikerStiles



Category: Clocktaur War Series - T. Kingfisher
Genre: Character Study, Crisis of Faith, Depression, Gen, Guilt, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 06:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19847191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrikerStiles/pseuds/StrikerStiles
Summary: Then he goes under again and it all fades into icy nothingness. His lungs burn but his eyes are blinded to that devastating sight and it's a mercy he doesn't dare hope he deserves. It's like one last kiss a father bestows his forsaken son; a God sullying His eternal light just to grant him one last moment of peaceful darkness.He stops begging after that.





	where there is faith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pondlocked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pondlocked/gifts).



> Yes, I made up another god just because I really really wanted Slate to say *that*.

He begs for the sword for what feels like months but the nuns just keep looking at him with their steely gazes; the same nuns whom he called sisters, the ones who tended to his wounds, who wiped blood from his face after horrible bouts with particularly tricky demons, the ones who prayed for his and all his siblings' safety- he blinks and suddenly all their habits are bloody, he sees them as he sees the others, as if they are all right here, the ones he killed with their never closing eyes, the never fading horror etched across their faces, their mouths ajar with silenced screams. Then he goes under again and it all fades into icy nothingness. His lungs burn but his eyes are blinded to that devastating sight and it's a mercy he doesn't dare hope he deserves. It's like one last kiss a father bestows his forsaken son; a God sullying His eternal light just to grant him one last moment of peaceful darkness.

He stops begging after that.

***  
After it's done, he asks Sister Vanna to cut his hair off. His penance. Her lips are thin with unease but she nods and her hands are gentle on his head, his forehead, around his ears. Elia-a sister in arms, sparring partner, listener of bad dreams and maker of bad jokes; _a friend, a stranger_ \- looks on from the doorway, her gaze unwavering as her hand on the hilt of her great sword. He sits there like a puppet without strings and watches as strands of hair fall around him, marring the greyness of the flagstones with their golden sheen. His beauty, his pride, his vanity. The dead demon mocks him in his head; its voice all distorted like all things are, in death. Peace, he would beg it. But his pride never left, it never ever leaves, so he remains silent. _I shall bow to no one. For I am His sword, I shall never fail, never break, never fall_. 

He would rather have fallen that day than standing tall with broken bodies all around, his mind half torn from screaming, his power a vice. He balls his fists so hard his nails break his skin. 

The demon laughs; victorious even in death.

***

They give him a trial because that's what you do, even if there is no doubt about his culpability. Everyone saw him kill those nuns; cut them into pieces and relish in their blood and terror as fellow paladins ran around, not knowing what to do. You cannot love and serve at the same time. He learned that, that day. He always thought it was possible but of course it was not. How could it be? Gods are too enormous to share their vessels with anything else. _Where there is faith, there can be nothing else_.

As the court reaches it verdict, he stares at the ground wondering if gods can love. Can it be called love still, if it's unrecognizable to humans? Would they know that it was?

They take him away, bind his eyes. He feels nothing. His heart is as barren as the salted fields of the north. His God, as silent as the hills.

 _Where there is faith, there can be nothing else_. 

The demon is silent, its horrible, dead fingers skimming the surface of his faith, poisoning it, making it bloom with water lilies made of doubt.

***

He's never been this alone before.

He was raised in the communal rooms and baths of the temple. Breakfast, prayers, sparring, lessons, lunch, prayers, more sparring, more lessons, dinner, more sparring, prayers, sleep. Not a moment alone. Constant chatter, secretive whispering, undertsanding looks. All around him people, his people, the only family he's ever known other than a distant memory. _It's better when they are orphans_. Then the missions. Companionable silences on horseback. Loud celebrations or grim determination, rushed meals and ridiculously small amounts of sleep; all shared. 

Now he sits in his tiny cell all alone, with nothing but a dead demon for company and wonders how long it usually takes for someone to go completely mad. He has this mad urge to poke at the demon, to see what it can really do in this state. But he's too scared to do that now. He challenged it once and lost so tremendously. He must know better.

He wonders why they let him live, not for the first time. He's been gone too long, the last time they put him under, or so they said. Why didn't they let him stay where he was, as peaceful as a newborn, in the merciful darkness where no holy light ever pierced? Did their God willed it so, or was it their own design? Did they think it would be too easy for him to die like that, having not paid for their sisters' blood? Was is punishment?

Is this punishment? This doubt? He's never known it before. He was always so sure, so unrelenting, so _devoted_. He misses a lot of things in this cell but he misses that the most. The certainty. The unyielding belief. The trust.

Is his anger ungrateful? The God didn't have to choose him in the first place. He could've allowed Caliban to be one of the many urchins roaming the streets, fighting for his next meal always, dying before his prime. He granted his subject a life, food, comfort, respect... a reason to be. A purpose. 

What was his to give is his to take away. That's only fair. It should be. He is no child, he's a paladin. 

Does a paladin beg for mercy? No. Never. Does he beg for love, then? 

For forgiveness?

His anger and guilt are twin swans, gently floating in the poisoned well inside his mind, which once was pure and full of faith. 

***  
“From where I'm looking at it,” says Slate, with a lilt in her voice, “he used you as he saw fit and cast you aside as soon as you were not his to break anymore. And where I come from, we call that cruelty.”

“You assume gods are like us,” he answers patiently, not for the first time. It's like being in theology class all over again. All these pointy questions with their triumphant accusations and regretful inabilities. “Maybe they are unable to care.”

She looks angry. He wonders for a moment, whether she ever believed in something. Did her god hurt her in an unforgivable way? Was she forsaken? Led astray? 

“Well,” she says and drains her goblet, “that's fair. And maybe I am unable to trust something that is unable to care with my life.”

“It is not asked of you.” It's more of sigh, really.

“It was. My mother was quite the devout, you know. I thought it was funny, but she used to say the Moon God guided her away from the farms and into the luxurious life. She used to make me pray to them every night. I never really got any answers. No miracles. No signs. No shiny swords.”

He doesn't know why he smiles, but he does. “The sword was given to me by the mother superior.”

“Same difference.” She shrugs. “They gave you a sword and they sent you after nightmares.”

“Better us than an innocent,” he says as he was taught. 

“And weren't you innocents?” She puts the goblet on the table with too much force, what little liquid left in it sloshes and spills. The dark red soaks into the light wood. It looks a lot like blood, in that light. It unsettles the demon. Slate tends to do that a lot. 

She leaves without another word and he sits there in silence, wondering if what she said was true. Have they ever been innocents, or did the holy light stripped their innocence off like sunlight stripping paint from their wooden practice shields? He's been away from that light for too long. Away from home. And he's going to die, definitely. And for some reason, for the first time after the demon, he doesn't wish it. His heart is not so empty anymore. It still aches, but in a different way. And he has no right; after all that happened, all he did-

He's a disgrace. Also a coward, probably. Why would Slate want him? He will disappoint her, as he did his God. How can he consider himself worthy of anything after-the demon- the water-begging begging begging-

 _You are not a man, but a sword._

What master would want a broken sword?

Suddenly he's cold again.


End file.
